


An Unfamiliar House

by gracchus



Category: A House of Many Doors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 02:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15160784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracchus/pseuds/gracchus
Summary: A mysterious woman ends up on a kinetopede without her memories. How will she adjust to the House and regain her memories.





	An Unfamiliar House

“Where am I?” I asked, unable to recollect any recent memories. I rubbed my left temple and my fingers glided over a small hole.

“You've gotten yer memories taken away,” a gruff voice said. “The cap’n decided to take you on our kinetopede.” My head was pounding insistently, clouding my thoughts.

The word “kinetopede” however, seemed strange. “Kinetopede?” I asked, beginning to grow more confused. “What's that?”

“She's really out o’ it, Caul,” the same gruff voice said. Despite his scratchy and unrefined voice, his words were heavy with genuine sympathy.

I opened my eyes, and three people were standing around, looking down upon me. One was a thin, gaunt-faced woman with a shy grin and black hair, one was a large, intimidating man whose face had more scar tissue than skin that was unblemished, and one was a plague doctor holding tincture in his hand.

I was even more confused than before. However, the woman soothed me with a soft voice. “You're going to be fine,” she said. “I just want to ask you some questions.”

“Like what,” I asked, still groggy from whatever had happened to me.

“Do you remember anything?” she asked. “How about where you're from, who you are, or how you got here?” I concentrated as hard as I possibly could, even until I delved the deepest of my thoughts and incidentally worsened my headache. After I had discovered nothing, I shook my head. 

“Do you have any memories about something more personal,” the plague doctor said in a slow drawl, “such as someone you know, or what you enjoy.”

I concentrated on that. “I don't remember any people in particular,” I explained. I thought harder until an image of a book appeared. “I-I think I remember liking to read and write,” I said, clutching my skull. For some reason, the scarred man thought that what I said was humorous.

“Heh, just like the ol’ Cap’n,” the man laughed. “Loving poetry but without memories.”

“The Captain?” I asked, “Are we on a ship?” The man looked annoyed. 

“‘Course we're not on a ship,” he said, as if I should have any idea about what he was talking about, despite knowing that I had just lost my memories. “This is a kinetopede.”

“What the hell is a kinetopede?” I asked irritably. These people were spouting words at me that I had never heard before.

“This may take a while to explain,” the plague doctor, said, sighing dramatically. “Here's the short version, you're in a dimension called the House, you were probably stolen from a different world, and judging by your lack of memories and the fresh hole in your temple, you were probably attacked by memory-thieves.”

For some odd reason, the idea of being stolen from a different dimension seemed familiar. Maybe all this really was happening after all. The doctor continued, 

“Right now we're inside a kinetopede, a vehicle that is capable of walking around the house. My name is Mobius Vanch, but you can just call me Dr. Vanch.” 

He turned to the thin woman, who smiled and waved shyly. He said, “This is Genevieve Caul, our lightbearer. She takes care of the Heartlight, the only light that can keep the Darkness and its apparitions at bay.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said kindly. I slowly and painfully lifted my arm and put it in hers. The muscular man pushed her out of the way and introduced himself almost much too eagerly,

“And I'm the Guard Captain. I protect the crew durin’ fights. The name’s Ransack, Ransack Morton.” He puffed out his chest and smiled brightly, showing several broken teeth.

Everybody paused for a bit, nobody knowing what else to say. “Can I go talk to your captain?” I finally asked. “Can he help me get my memories back?” Genevieve nodded and said,

“Let's just say that the Captain has a lot of experience in getting memories back.” She stopped, a mildly worried expression appeared on her face as she continued, “...Although you seem to have lost a great deal of memories. More than anybody I've ever seen.”

“I'll take you there,” Ransack said, a smile splitting open across his face. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Although he seemed amiable enough, the scars all over his face betrayed any hint of kindness his appearance would have. However, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and slowly climbed out of my bed. Genevieve waved goodbye, but Dr. Vanch remained motionless, his mask hiding his emotions.

The kinetopede’s interior was spacious, and the hallways were wide. Outside the infirmary, a swabbie scrubbed the floor while an engineer fiddled with one of the many brass pipes that lined the walls.

While the swabbie seemed to be a normal human, the engineer had the head of a shark. When I inquired about this strange creature, Ransack explained, “That there was a Carchar.”

“Umm… I don't know what a Carchar is,” I said, trying not to sound ignorant.

“They're shark people who are from a place called the Kelp Fortress,” described Ransack. “They mostly dislike other species, but some of them, like Eats-the-Living over there, are pretty friendly.”

“So there are different creatures in this House other than humans?” I asked, confused. For some reason, the concept of other intelligent species other than humans seemed alien to me. Maybe it had to do something with the world I had been stolen from, or my lost memories.

Ransack chuckled. Possibly at my ignorance, or maybe he was just that merry of a guy. “Oh yeah, there's loads o’ ‘em,” he said, then began listing some examples off, “There's the mycenae, which are mushroom people. And the ghouls, which are just walking corpses. Then there's the goat-men, but they're all savages.”

Despite is goofy speech mannerisms, he seemed to know quite a bit about. “And there's a lot o’ smaller groups too,” he continued, “like the Archivists and the ghosts.”

“This is very interesting and all,” I said, growing impatient as we continued to walk down a seemingly never-ending hallway. “but where exactly is your captain anyway?”

“He's probably in ‘ere,” Ransack answered, “It's the engine room. He spends a lot of time in there with the Chief Engineer.” 

When Ransack opened the door, what I saw utterly baffled me. It was bizarre even compared to everything else happening. To be honest, I don't think any amount of mental preparations could've prepared me for this.

Heavy sheets of smoke billowed out the doorway. Inside, two people were frantically running about the smoke-filled room. One was a man wearing a classy, beige suit and had a fairly goofy appearance, while the other was a short hyper-looking woman wearing a brown jacket.

The engine was sputtering and making loud clanking and crashing noises. The kind of sounds you don't want to hear in an engine if you are particularly not fond of exploding.

The suited man was trying (and failing) to fix whatever was wrong with the machinery. No matter how hard he screwed in the bolts, they kept flying out of their places with hisses of steam, as if the engine itself was angry at him.

The girl, who seemed to be a little on the crazy side, was screaming insults and obscenities at the engine and throwing books into the roaring belly of its fires. It hurt me to see such a waste of literature. Almost instinctively, I reached out to stop this woman from her pointless destruction of knowledge.

Right before grabbed her arm, the engine instantly stopped clanking, and the smoke in the room thinned. The man took a deep breath and wiped some sweat from his forehead, looking relieved. The woman looked at me, puzzled.

“Who the fuck are you?” she crudely asked, ignoring her vulgar language.

Ransack stepped into the engine room and informed her, “This is the girl ya found inside that one ol’ barnhouse with the hole in ‘er head.”

The woman took her arm out of my grasp. “Why is she grabbing me like that?”

“I-I was just trying to keep you from burning those books,” I said. I didn't want to offend this woman, since she seemed to be the captain.

However, her expression immediately changed from confusion to friendliness, and she said, “Oh, it's fine,” she said, “The engine just gets kind of grumpy if it doesn't have any reading material.”

“...What?” I may have forgotten almost everything about myself, but I was fairly certain engines didn't need to read, much less even able to.

The man in the suit spoke up, “Captain, I think that our new friend here has lost most of her memories. She probably is a visitant too, and has no clue what a Philosophy Engine is.”

The captain looked at him, then looked back at me, then she said. “I guess we've got a lot of explaining to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I have no clue when the second chapter will come out, due to my busy schedule, but I hope it can come out soon.


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